SIEUR DE MONTS PUBLICATIONS 



V 



An Acadian Plant Sanctuary 



\ \ 




ISSUED BY 

THE WILD GARDENS OF ACADIA 
BAR HARBOR, MAINE 







0- °* °'„ 



SIEUR DE MONTS PUBLICATIONS 



V 



" There are few tJiinfjs 'nt tlie course of journeys which 
one recalls with more pleasure than parks and gardens 
which combine opportunities for studying the flora of a 
country ivith the enjoyment of natural beauty." 

James Bkyce. 

M. L. FERNALD 

Professor of Botany at Harvard University 

Curator of the Gray Herbarium 

Former President New England Botanical Society 



One of the commonest sights in the wilder districts of 
our once densely timbered eastern States is vast stretches 
of burned and wasted land, desolate and unproductive. 

Now, nearly all the native plants which originally 
inhabited these desolated areas have a peculiarly modi- 
fied root-structure wliich renders it impossible for them 
to grow in any soil other than the moist and spongelike 
forest humus, to life in which their whole development 
has been shaped for ages past. 

The immediate effect, then, of tlie removal of the forest 
and l)urning over of its leafy floor is the complete annihi- 
lation of countless lesser plants, wild flowers and ferns 
in hundreds of beautiful and interesting species which 
give the primeval forest of the region its great natural 
charm. 

The evil does not stop, however, with the destruction of 
the native woods and wild flowers and the gradually ac- 

3 



cmnulated wealth of woodland soil. Xatiire's anciently 
established equilibrium is disturbed at its foundation, 
and the native insects, associated from the beginning 
with the native flowering plants and rarely hurtful to 
the farmer, perish largely with the vegetation and the 
soil that they have lived and bred upon, leaving the field 
clear for the invasion of destructive foreign species. 

The bii'ds, in turn, who feed upon the native insects 
and control the balance of insect increase, no longer find 
theii- former food supply or shelter, and either vanish 
from the wasted region or continue in diminished 
niunbers. 

Much of the land thus wrecked by axe and fire in the 
well-watered eastern portion of our coimtry must ulti- 
mately be reclothed with forest as its best economic use, 
and none can be so well adapted to it as that which na- 
ture clothed it with originally, rich alike in beauty and 
in valuable species. But it will be long before such land 
again develops the humus covering the native forest 
flora and its associated life recpiire, and unless prompt 
measures are taken to conserve them till it does the 
task of resettling future forests with the rich, indigenous 
life that is the region's own will have become impossible. 

It has, therefore, long seemed to the writer that the 
only way in which to conserve for the enjoyment and 
study of future generations any portions of our coun- 
try which by good fortune still remain in their natural 
condition is the reservation of appropriate tracts, such 
as may properly be set aside, with the explicit stipula- 
tion that they be left essentially in their natural state. 

This brings me to the crucial point : Where is the best 
spot, if only a single spot can be thus preserved, for the 
perfection of this ideal? A detailed knowledge of the 
geography, the flora, and to some extent the soil condi- 
tions of eastern North America, acciuired through twen- 
ty-five years of active exploration in New England, the 
Maritime Pro^*inces, Quebec, Newfoundland, and Labra- 

4 



dor, naturally brings several regions to mind; but as a 
single area within the possible reach of this hope, the 
Island of Mount Desert, with its adjacent islets and head- 
lands, stands out as offering the greatest natural 
diversity. 

This comes obviously from the fact that Mount Desert 
is the highest land on the Atlantic coast of North America 
south of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, its boldly sculptured 
hills, which rise directly from the water's edge, attaining 
altitudes of almost montane character. 

The exposed headlands and bogs of the Mount Desert 
region support between two and three hundred species 
of plants which are typical of the arctic, subarctic, and 
Hudsonian regions of America, and which on the eastern 
coast of New England or the alpine summits of the White 
Mountains reach their actual or approximate southern 
limits — such plants, for instance, as the Black Crowberry, 
Empetrum nigrum; the Baked-apple Berry, Ruhus 
Chainaemorus ; the Creeping Juniper, Jmiipcrus horizon- 
talis; the Greenland Sandwort, Arenaria gyoenlandica; 
the Rose-root, SediDn roseum; and the Banksian Pine, 
Pinus Banksiana. 

But the flora of the Mount Desert region is not by any 
means entirely arctic or subarctic. There we find essen- 
tially all the common plants of the Canadian zone, and 
mingling with them in sheltered nooks and meadows or 
on warm slopes, many scores of plants which reach their 
extreme northern or northeastern limit on Mount Desert 
or the immediate coast — such ])lants as the Pitch Pine, 
Pinus rigida; the Bear Oak, Quercus ilicifoJia; the Sweet 
Pepperbush, Clethra alnifolia; the Swamp Loosestrife, 
Decodon verticillatus; the Meadow Beauty, Rliexia vir- 
ginica; and the Maple-leaved Viburnum, Viburmim 
acerifolium. 

This extraordinary accumulation witliin one small area 
of the typical plants of the arctic realm, of the Canadian 
zone, and in many cases of the southern coastal plain, 

6 



cannot be duplicated at any point Ivnown to the writer. 

In its rock and soil composition Mount Desert offers 
a most attractive possibility. Much of the Island consists 
of granite rocks, with the consequent acid soils that these 
give rise to ; but the soils derived from some of the nieta- 
morphic series, slates and shales, are, judging from the 
native vegetation, of a basic or even limy character, and 
many of the swamps are covered not with the heath 
thickets of acid bogs but with the characteristic grasses 
and sedges of sweet areas. 

A number of the Island plants, indeed, sometimes of 
rock habitats, sometimes of swamps, suggest themselves 
at once as species which, in their wide range, show a 
strong preference for sweet or limy habitats : the Shrubby 
Cinquefoil, Potent ilia fruticosa; the Showy Lady's Slip- 
per, Cypripediwn hirsution ; the Hemlock Parsley, Con- 
ioselimim cJiinense, are instances. 

These features alone are sufficient to indicate the 
remarkable possibilities for the future if a tract like 
Mount Desert, unique upon our coast in physical config- 
uration as in beauty, can be preserved from the destruc- 
tion of its natural charm by the judicious guarding of 
what it now possesses and the re-introduction of what it 
has lost, or lost presumably, both plants and animals. 

The fame of the island as the playground, habitual or 
occasional of a vast and highly intelligent portion of 
our population, also renders it remarkably appropriate 
for such a natural reservation ; and should such a reser- 
vation be established there, with due emphasis laid upon 
the maintenance or redevelopment of natural and indi- 
genous conditions, its influence upon the intelligent 
peoples of America will be indeed far-reaching. For it 
is inconceivable that lovers of nature could enjoy such 
an ideal area, with its unmolested wild flowers, ferns, 
birds and harmless animals and with the full beauty of 
nature everywhere displayed, without desiring and pro- 
viding a similar blessing — according to the varied 

7 



opportunities that offer — for tliemselves, their children, 
and their chiklren's children in other jjortions of the 
wiitinent. 



Professor Fernald wrote his plea for conservation 
of the Acadian flora through the establishment of plant 
sanctuaries ui)on Mount Desert Island — a place of 
extraordinary natural fitness for "the purpose^ — before 
it was known whether or not the United States Govern- 
ment would accept the lands then offered it upon the 
Island for a national monument and park. 

The warm interest of the Secretary of the Interior, 
the Hon. I'ranklin K. Lane, in a project which would 
extend the benefits of the National Parks Service to the 
great eastern section of the country, with its dense city 
populations, resulted in the establishment upon Mount 
Desert Island of the first national park area — war 
monuments apart — east of Arkansas. This monument 
initiates, accordingly, a new departure on the Govern- 
ment's part, a broadening of its policy for nature con- 
servation and the establishment of recreation areas for 
its people amidst the older eastern country. And 
it is fitly chosen for such i)urpose, its grey granite moun- 
tains fronting the Acadian Seas traversed by the early 
voyagers and already annually visited in the sixteenth 
century by fishing fleets from Brittany. It is w^ith that 
wild Breton coast, famous always for its hardy, fearless 
race of seamen, and with the Bay of Biscay shores be- 
hind which lay de Monts' and Champlain's boyhood 
homes that the history of eastern North America is first 
associated. 

This early xVcadian period of the first settlements it 
is that the Sieur de Monts National Monument is intended 
to commemorate historically. But, historic interest 
apart, as what Alexander von Humboldt first called, in his 
home tongue, a ''Nature" monument. Mount Desert in its 

9 



own type and region stands supreme, not only exhibit- 
ing the boldest rock formations on our eastern coast, 
worn by the sea's attack and deep ice-sheet erosion, but 
also furnishing a uniquely favorable opportunity for 
Wild Gardens such as Professor Fernald writes of, Plant 
Sanctuaries preserving and exhibiting — so far as that is 
possible — in a single tract of concentrated plant and 
landscape interest the whole Acadian flora. 

How rich this flora is in beautiful and interesting 
species yet capable of preservation no one knows who 
has not made, as he, a thorough study of the subject by 
personal investigation; nor how rapidly these species 
are diminishing. There is no other way to save its wild 
and woodland beauty, the infinite variety and interest of 
the native vegetation, but that which Professor Fernald 
urges — Wild Garden Sanctuaries wherein the ancient 
forest life of the Acadian region may still perpetuate 
itself and its plants grow on in their original environment, 
of leafy woodland shade or peaty meadow; and where 
their loveliness may give men pleasure always and not 
lead to their destruction. 

George B. Dorr. 



11 



SIEUR DE MONTS PUBLICATIONS 



VI 



Wild Life and Nature Conservation in the 
Eastern States 




ISSUED BY 

THE WILD GARDENS OF ACADIA 
BAR HARBOR, MAINE 



Coilected sets 




Fir.st glimpse of the ocean on the path to Huguenot Head in the Sieur de Monts national 

park ujjon the coast of Maine 

D. of D. 
NOV 3D 1317 



I 



SIEUR DE MONTS PUBLICATIONS 



VI 



James Bryce 

Kerner von 
Marilaun 
Univ. of 
Vienna 

A. F. Schimper 
Univ. of 
Bonn 

C. S. Sargent 

L'. S. Forestry 
Report 



A. R. Wallace 



WILD LIFE AND NATURE C()NSKR\\\TI()N 
IN THE EASTERN STATES. 

The A])]>alacliiaii region of America eoiilained 
until lately the iinest temperate-zone forest, and 
t]ie ricliest in species, in the world. It ranged 
nnbrokenly from the northern boundary of tlie 
United States to Alabama and the Red River 
region of Lonisiana, and it stretched from the 
Atlantic lowlands to the prairies. Now, comjiara- 
tively little of this forest is left in an unaltered 
state ; its area has shrunk to a fraction of what it 
was, and is still shrinking rapidly. 

It is a forest of immense antiquity. The earliest 
fossil record of the broad-h'aved, deciduous-leaved 
type of tree found in tlie world is found in deep- 
l)laced rock-strata of the southern Appalachians, 
and the evidence is strong that never since that 
immeasurably far-off time lias the long succession 
(^f its trees been broken, south of the limit of ice- 
sheet invasion. It is iiiii(iue today in species 
no longer to be found elsewhere, such as the 
Tulip Tree, of whicli a dozen other species once 
dwelt Avithin it; the Magnolias — now elsewhere 
found in eastern Asia only; the Tupelo, the 
Liquidamber, Sassafras, and others. Anciently 
as rich as it in these and other forms, the whole 
continent of Europe at the ]^resent time can 
scarcely show one-half its wealth in genera and 
species. 




Giant Maplo-tree in Pennsylvania 



L. Fernald 



S. Shaler 
C. Russell 
P. Lesley 



larles Eliot 



R. Wallace 



.. F. Schimpei 



utch and 
English Colo- 
nial Reports 



These species, forever irreplaceable if lost, 
are—like many of our native wild-flowers, birds 
and animals whose home the forest was — seriously 
endangered nnder existini>- conditions; and eastern 
America stands in the way today of losing swiftly, 
in a single hnman lifetime, ils long inheritance 
of wealth and beauty in tlie natural world, in tr(^es, 
in flowering shrubs and plants, in birds and other 
forms of animal life. 

Again, the Atlantic coast lands on the one hand 
and the Mississippi Valley, with its branches, on 
the other, are regions destined to be permanent 
and crowded homes of industry and trade— homes 
of men, that is, on a vast scale. Between them, 
and everywhere within easy reach from them, lie 
the Appalachian mountain ranges, of great 
natural beauty and refreshing quality in extensive 
tracts, the ancient home of these magnificent for- 
ests, the source of streams, rich in delightful un- 
dergrowth and faunal life. This region of woods 
and mountains, terminating in a magnificently 
watered region in the north, r)resents possibilities 
of incalculable importance to the crowded city 
])opulations of the East, the South, and the great 
Central Plains. To save it to the utmost in beauty 
and refreshing quality is imperative, in view of 
the great coming need, and it is yet more impera- 
tive'to save to those who will come after us the 
forest's wealth of tree and plant species, of bird 
and other animal life. For these are things, 
precious in every sense, that once lost are lost for- 
ever, and not a few are lost already. 

AYhat is now proposed is this— founded partly 
on a scheme urged years ago by Dutch and Eng- 
lish naturalists for the i)reservation of the native 
forest and its associated life in their eastern col- 



A. R. Wallace 



Charles Eliot 



National Assn. 
Audubon 

Societies 



James Bryce 



onies and pai'tly on ilie knowledge that Itiologists 
have gained in recent years concerning bird and 
other wikl life conservation: To establish a 
systematic chain of reserves, large or small as 
opportunity serves but selected always with well- 
studied reference to the preservation and favor- 
able exhibit of the native forest and other floras, 
the bird and other faunas of their region; and to 
choose these areas, also, so as to make of each, so 
for as possible, a scenic reservation and a i)ark, 
contributing to liealth and pleasure and tlie de- 
velopment of a love for nature. 

Each such reserve would thus contribute — 
variously, according to its character — toward 
these general ends: (1) the preservation of the 
native forest flora, its trees and underi)lants ; (2) 
the preservation of bird and other forms of ani- 
mal life, natively inhabiting the forest; (o) op- 
portunity for scientific observation and study of 
these both, existing naturally under their original 
conditions; (4) conservation, in the i)ublic inter- 
est, of beautiful and inspiring landscapes; (5) 
the establishment of a means of study for plant- 
ers, landscape architects and foresters who have 
work to plan and carry out in the surrounding 
region. 

In certain places, one or the other of these 
objects would be dominant — as bird sanctuaries 
along the shore from Cape Cod soutliwnrd, or 
scenic reservations in tracts of excei)tionally 
striking scenery, such as mountain heights and 
river gorges or beautiful coast landscapes. 

To the development of landscape work along 
broad and natural lines — work soundly based on 
nature — nothing that could else be done, no train- 



V'->5fNv'^ 







y 



Lmerican In- 
stitute of 
Architects 



S. Minot 



I. L. Fernald 



. S. Biologi- 
cal Survey 



ing in schools or study of foreign examples im- 
possible of reproduction here, would contribute 
so liberally as this. In exhibiting to architects 
and landscape architects, or men charged with 
the development of public parks, the whole range 
of native material within tlieir reacli, a work of 
widest influence would be accomplished, and one 
that would aid greatly in tlie creation of a national 
landscape art. 

For the botanist and entomologist such reserves, 
grouped in a linked series readily and (piickly 
traversed, would not only provide living collec- 
tions of the rare plant and insect s]iecies of each 
region, difficult to study otherwise, but would 
also save from destruction many an interesting 
life form else certain to become extinct as the 
woods are cut away, the lands denuded and burnt 
over. 

For the preservation of the bird and other wild 
life of the Continent, migratory as the former 
largely is, absolute sanctuaries, well gTOuped and 
not too far apart, have already proved themselves 
beyond dispute essential, in the presence of a 
time where human forethought and prompt ac- 
tion only can avert the swift destructiveness of 
human agencies more ruinous biologically and 
wider spread than the destructive agencies of any 
previous age, glacial or other, the rocks or later 
clays reveal. 

George B. Dokr. 



J^^-w, 




Ancient sea-cliff on Monnt Desert Island, raised b^' coastal elevation and deeply 

sunk in woods 



